


You're all idiots

by username113



Category: Astral Chain (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Help how do I tag, Multi, Post-Game(s), aka the only sequel plot i will accept, basically just hal kyle and player akira being friends with maybe plot, olive being disappointed by poor life choices, seriously dont expect any romance because i dont get that sort of thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 20:24:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20606783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/username113/pseuds/username113
Summary: There are better ways to deal with stress than running off with about a billion in government property to join a gang, but Akira's going to make the most of it.In other news, Kyle shouldn't be allowed to Science, and Hal is wrong about being the Only Sane Man because you can't be by default if you haven't slept in a month.





	You're all idiots

**Author's Note:**

> Both twins are called Akira but non-player Akira is just kind of talked about and never referred to by name. I don't know why anyone would want to read this but my brain wouldn't shut up until made it.
> 
> Sorry about the line spacing. I don't know how to use this site,so it was either this or spaces three times the size. Also I probably missed some errors, so theres that too.

“No, no, you’ve got to add some ground almond to the cheese, that’s what makes the crunchy parts better!”

“Louis, if you say that again I will literally beat you to death with a rock.”

The semi-official communal kitchen didn’t have much, but it was better than what the vast majority of Zone 9 residents had access to. Mike would always regret treating his old one-room apartment with such disdain, but it was just like his grandma always said: you never really appreciated what you had until your neighbors turned into shrieking cube monsters and tried to claw your eyes out. He finished chopping the onions, restraining himself from cutting one of Louis’s fingers off as the filthy heathen stole a handful to eat raw.

_ Anyway, _ the Hermits had benefits outside the obvious, and though he hadn’t been one for cooking in his past life, he found himself really getting into it. Unfortunately, none of his teammates other than Louis seemed to share his enthusiasm, so his newfound hobby had somehow lead to him providing meals for a good fifteen percent of their on-site members. Even worse, this number included their current leaders, since it turned out neither of them would know proper nutrition if it-

“Put, the cinnamon, _ down. _Or I swear to-”

Yes, it fell to Mike to become their live-in chef, lest the entire organisation fall to its knees because one of their ingenious leaders decided to try and best the other’s record for ‘most weeks on an all energy drink diet.’

_ Again. _

Still, it wasn’t such a bad way to pass the time, _ and _ he was getting paid. He just wished that someone with something resembling mental stability would show up and help him make the base a bit less… chaotic.

As if to spite him, that was when the robot burst through the window in a shower of glass and universal disdain for Mike’s sanity. 

\---

It was day sixty-eight since that long night at the ARI when Akira decided to leave.

There wasn’t anything major to trigger it, as far as she could tell; just a series of minor issues that happened to overwhelm her at the wrong place and time.

But then again, the fact that it had gotten to that point in the first place was bad, wasn’t it?

They were gathered in the break room, not an uncommon occurrence in recent months, but for once Jin was even allowing himself to take a breather from his seemingly never-ending training. Or, more likely, Alicia had dragged him away after his new Legion had attempted to force him to take a break again. His new partner was quite protective of its user, just… in a very aggressive way.

Not for the first time today, Akira wondered how Hal was doing. While the time she spent recovering at his base in Zone 9 had been brief, it had started to feel more like a second home than she’d like to admit. How did he even get half the equipment? Seriously, a Legatus Terminal just for her to clean her Legions? Hal had certainly picked a good place to let her recover in. There was none of the looming formality of HQ, and walking around, looking for people to help - it…

Helped her remember why she was fighting? No, she didn’t forget. Gave her something to do? Too passive. At any rate, it had helped her get her head on straight after… well…

Let’s just say there were a few more side effects to Legion fusion than Hal had noticed.

The lack of paperwork had been pretty nice, too!

Anyway, she wasn’t _ worried _ about Hal. Akira _ knew _ worried. She and her brother were very familiar with that feeling.

When the emergency alerts painted all the screens in the house red and you could _ do nothing _ but huddle together under the coffee table and hope that today wouldn’t be the the last time you ever got to see Dad smile.

But still, Zone 9 was a dangerous place to be - while there were more than enough Legion users to go around for the rest of the Ark, the dimensionally unstable Zone 9 was still pretty much on its own. Even Yoseph Calvert had answered to people, and with him and his _ ‘solutions’ _ gone, the ones at the top were scrutinising Neuron more than they ever had before. Sending in regular officers could be justified as ‘policing the illegal inhabitants‘, but Neuron’s Legion users? No, they were needed elsewhere: like in the god damn break room because there aren’t enough gates to keep them all occupied any more.

She had her theories as to why their overseers suddenly seemed so interested in neutering their own organisation, but she’d leave the politics to Olive. Though people used to tell Akira that she was incapable of backing down from a fight, she knew when to let people more experienced in the field handle things.

Speaking of Olive, even she was here - frantically tapping away at the armful of tablets she’d brought with her, yes, but it was good to see her out of the Command room for the first time in… a concerning amount of time. Squeezed onto the couch between Alicia and her brother, it made the assembly feel a little less incomplete.

She had just made an offhand remark about Akira’s lack of input to their conversation, prompting Jin to launch into a recount of something that happened during the Twins’ early years. He would bring the story up every once in a while, as close to making a joke at their father’s expense as he could get.

About how, back when they were well past the age they should be speaking full sentences, when Dad had still been working out that whole ‘parenting’ thing, he’d panicked and called up every doctor on the Ark that would listen - worried out of his mind that there was something physically wrong with his daughter that wouldn’t speak. At one point, a receptionist, terrified by the strange man screaming incomprehensibly while holding two children hostage in the middle of the lobby, had called the police on him. And that was how Dad was nearly arrested while trying to schedule an appointment on child social development with the dentist.

But, no, there was nothing wrong with her. If he’d listened to the first eight doctors, he would have known that. Talking just… wasn’t her thing. Active communication in general wasn’t her thing.

Keeping track of everything she said and implied and the damn _ connotations _? Exhausting. And people like Olive who made a career out of that sort of thing were to be treated with respect and fear in equal measure.

Honestly though, it was a bit hypocritical of Dad to act like that when she was relatively certain that she got it from him. Whenever anything caught him off guard you’d be lucky to get as much as a pained grunt out of him; that was just his way of dealing with stress. The same was true for Akira, just with a much lower tolerance for any form of pressure.

She’d never felt like it was a problem - there didn’t seem to be enough people in the world you could sit down with and _ know _ they were listening to you, and the majority of her co-workers agreed. Sure, a few people still disliked her blunt speech whenever she did open her mouth, but the people closest to her usually understood what she meant without having to perform verbal ballet to make them _ get _ it.

Her family though? They understood every time, and they had her back. Always.

Even when her family was ripped in two, even when she didn’t know how to help the only one that was left, even when the last one...

Akira watched her brother from across the table, an unpleasant emotion clawing its way up her throat as she registered the look of pure confusion in his eyes, as if he didn’t even remember what Jin was talking about.

...What was she thinking? He’s still here.

Even if you remember screaming on the rooftop as his viscous black blood dissolves into purple cubes and into nothing until there’s not even a trace to prove he was even alive.

Yes. That’s her Brother.

...So why did it hurt like he was still gone?

\---

Before Mike could even react, the robot was followed through by a smaller figure in black and white, twisting into a perfect three point landing that would have been graceful if she hadn’t crashed into half his saucepans and Louis while doing so.

She rose casually, as if this was something she did on a regular basis, and he couldn’t help but stumble back in mute terror as the robot monster turned to glare at him.

“Oh shit, it’s _ her _ again!” Louis was still alive underneath the crazy woman, it seemed.

Mike knew he should be running, or screaming, or anything useful, but his brain had latched on to the fact that the crazy woman was holding a _ cat _of all things and shut down completely.

“What the hell do you want this time?”

The short-haired woman stared down Mike’s friend, unblinking, before holding up said cat as if that was anything resembling an explanation. She turned to the window she’d just come through

“Your windows need replacing. Get stronger ones next time.”

And they were off, casually exiting the kitchen with a purring cat in their arms and a floating knife monster in tow.

“W-what just happened?”

“Wait, you don’t know who that was?”

Louis pulled himself to his feet, dusting off the broken glass with a manic grin on his face; Mike’s mood instantly shifted from fear to pure, unadulterated terror.

“So you remember that time the sky turned into cubes?”

\---

“...in addition, four more of the Redshift Sensors had their parts stolen, the Liberation Front’s work again. However, some of our new recruits in the Intelligence division came up with the idea of cross-referencing drone traffic to known areas of interest, allowing us to narrow down the location of one of their bases near our sector. I’m sending you the details now.”

“Nice work, if there’s that much activity it’s either a major base or they’re planning on switching locations sometime soon. Get some more people patrolling the wider roads near there, see if you can’t find the place yourselves. As for the rest of you-” Despite being masked, each figure on the monitor visibly paled at their leader’s shift in tone.

“Try and follow Marisa’s example and divert some of your team to exclusively tracking down the Liberation Front remnants! If nobody’s coming forward to claim the reward for intel, try getting creative for once in your lives: money doesn’t appeal to them, offer medicine, offer protection, somebody’s going to give.”

Hal’s drone sagged in the air behind Kyle - the longer these meetings went on, the more the problems piled up, and he wasn’t able to come up with any solutions because that would take time and parts and there was never enough of either. Whenever it seemed like they were finally on top of the basics, a gate detector or a synthesiser or _ something _ would break, and they’d be scrambling to fix things before the next problem reared its head.

“Sector J - Liam! Anything new to report?” The next pseudo-lieutenant shot up in their seat.

“A couple more disappearances in the Garde- sorry, in Block F, and someone found a bunch of claw marks down Block W - bigger than the last few, so if it’s a beast type it should be about, uh, truck sized.”

_ Great _, just what they needed.

When Hal had first founded the group, their street presence had been more along the lines of relief aid: trafficking and distributing whatever supplies his hackers’ information brokering could afford.

To say Kyle had changed that would be the understatement of the century. Suddenly the Hermits were a visible force policing the area, and with the abilities Blue Evolve granted them, Hal could understand why the change had been appealing. It was one thing to pass out bandages to grieving families, a whole different deal to put a stop to the threat before it could become one in the first place.

So, the new, compromised version of the Hermits retained Kyle’s overall style, just with more of a focus on stabilising things than gathering power for a suicidal charge against the rest of the Ark. The only problem was that Kyle had taken his words on that stormy rooftop perhaps a little too close to heart, and was now intent on helping out the individuals of Zone 9, rather than the area as a whole.

That is to say, he was dead set on helping out every, single, one of them.

As a result, the Hermits were currently stretching themselves dangerously thin, even with the aid of Hal’s resources. He’d brought up the idea of reducing their territory on multiple occasions, but when presented with the choice between maintaining their current range or just leaving the civilians alone to die… Well... He couldn’t exactly say no to that, could he?

The meeting concluded with no further bombshells, to Hal’s relief. As the screens went black one by one, he couldn’t help but sigh.

“Something wrong?” There was none of the heat from before in Kyle’s voice now, just tiredness. The stress was getting to both of them, Kyle was snapping at their subordinates more often, and Hal was… Hal was _ fine. _

“Nope, what?! I’m just thinking.” That could have come out a bit less panicky.

Kyle’s mask switched to its ‘flat incredulity’ display. Hal calculated his chances of escape via the nearest air vent.

“You spent too long around those Union idiots; some of their crippling perfectionism’s rubbed off on you. Stop looking at everything you’re not doing and focus on how many people you’re helping now.”

He steamrolled over Hal’s protests with practiced ease.

“Come on, do you want me to spend the next ten minutes counting off everything you’ve done to help us - hell, help everyone on the whole damn Ark?”

“That’s really not...” Kyle’s grinning face, suddenly much closer, offered no chance of escape.

“If my friend’s going to be a dumbass and beat himself up over things that aren’t his fault, I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

To Hal’s eternal gratitude, a flashing popup chose that moment to appear on his monitor. ”Oh hey - someone just set off the proximity alarms!

“...”

“Don’t give me that look, I’m serious this time!”

Kyle maintained eye contact for a couple more seconds, then groaned, “Are you _sure_ it’s not a cat again?”

“I recalibrated the weight sensors last month! And someone just broke in through the kitchen window.”

Hal’s attention flicked to the security feed of the base, it took him a second to find the right camera, but- “Wait, wait, I think I know who it is! But why on Earth would they… uh, Kyle?”

Kyle had left when he first mentioned the kitchen. Hal raced to catch up to his friend.

Navigating crowded hallways was not even remotely what his aerial drone had been built for - he should think about making some kind of ground-based body when he next had the time, because one of his parts was going to fall off again if he hit one more person in the head today. On the bright side, he had the base’s layout memorised, so he’d be able to catch up to both of them before things escalated.

“Well if it isn’t the Police Girl!”

He rounded the last corner just as Kyle spotted their intruder. Akira hadn’t gotten far from the kitchen since her arrival; while the facility was part of the base’s outer layer of rooms, its proximity to other ‘main attractions’ like the training hall meant that the halls were more often than not occupied by a couple of Hermits on break. Going by the lack of unconscious bodies, it looked like Akira had gone out of their way to avoid alerting anyone, something Hal appreciated. Head injuries were bad.

“Finally reconsidered handing over that Legion of yours?”

“You can try.” Akira’s deadpan stare was as terrifying as it was the day he met her.

It was nice to see that she hadn’t changed these last few months - street drones and security cameras were such poor poor quality compared to his personal drone’s scanners, it had been such a pain relying on them until now. She spotted him dithering behind Kyle and waved.

“A-ah, hi Akira!” These weren’t the best circumstances to reunite under, but he might as well enjoy them, “What are you… doing here...”

Hal spotted the cat in her arms and was immediately assaulted by flashbacks of watching Akira put off urgent missions to perform increasingly life-threatening antics in order to rescue and/or steal any cat that crossed her line of sight.

“Oh.”

“And I quit my job.”

His speakers were not equipped to transmit the noises he was currently making, causing a shriek of feedback to ring throughout the base.

“Akira tell m- Why would-” He noticed Kyle’s shoulders trembling with poorly concealed laughter.

“-_ please _ tell me, did you actually quit your job? Did you _ legally _ quit your job?”

Akira suddenly found interest in the cat in her arms, which was now attempting to bat at the glowing core on her wrist.

_ “Ohh no-” _

Kyle on the other hand couldn’t be happier, at the horrible, _ awful, TERRIBLE _turn of events; Hal was left scrambling to stabilise himself from the man’s energetic clap to the back of the drone.

“Well, if there’s any good news to be taken from today, it looks like our chimera problem just solved itself!”

**Author's Note:**

> Next chapter (if it happens): People are less sad, and also Kyle pov. Probably some other stuff too.
> 
> Yeah I know there's a lot of unexplained stuff, but I'm trying to keep the infodumping to a consistent level each chapter, if there are more, sorry.


End file.
